Washington, D.C.

Report: Boeing overpaid for airport security contract

The Transportation Security Administration has overpaid Boeing Co. by at least $49 million on a contract to install explosive detection equipment at U.S. commercial airports, according to an internal audit released Monday.

Homeland Security Department Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin found TSA failed to follow appropriate procedures in awarding Boeing the contract, worth $1.2 billion with the possibility of lucrative extensions.

TSA gave Boeing at least $44 million in “provisional award fees” — incentives designed to motivate the company to perform at a high level — without ever evaluating the job Boeing was doing.

Boeing was awarded the contract in June 2002 to install more than 7,000 explosive detection devices and systems at 429 airports. TSA initially estimated the contract was worth $508 million and would last seven months, with options to extend it. But TSA modified the contract 54 times by December 2003, increasing the base value to $1.2 billion and the length to 18 months, the report found.

New Jersey

U.S. rejects Muslims’ plea for a list of charities

The U.S. government rejected a request Monday from Muslim groups to draw up a list of Islamic charities to which they could donate without being suspected of terrorist ties.

Muslim groups say they fear giving to a charity that might make them look suspicious to the FBI. The holy month of Ramadan has begun, and Muslims are required to give to the poor during that period.

“If the government knows there are charities that are misleading the American Muslim community, it’s their obligation to help protect these innocent Americans,” said Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer for the New Jersey-based American Muslim Union.

The request was rejected by the Justice Department, which called it impossible to fulfill.

“Our role is to prosecute violations of criminal law,” said spokesman Bryan Sierra. “We’re not in a position to put out lists of any kind, particularly of any organizations that are good or bad.”

Canada

Dinosaur fossils found in Arctic

Researchers have found the remains of a large meat-eating dinosaur on a bleak mountainside on an island off the north coast of Canada, the first dinosaur fossils discovered above the Arctic Circle.

Paleontologist Hans Larsson, of McGill University’s Redpath Museum, described the foot bones and teeth found on Bylot Island as those of a large “tyrannosaurid,” a group that includes Tyrannosaurus rex.

“There was not enough to say what particular species it was,” Larsson said. “But it’s a large predatory dinosaur. We’re just starting to open up a window on what life was like there.”

Larsson said the fossil was about 75 million years old, embedded in a set of rocky pinnacles that rose out of the sea just north of Baffin Island, nearly 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

“The rocks were deposited on the edge of a beach, so the whole environment up there was kind of like a temperate forest with lots of trees” at the time the dinosaurs lived, he said.